SQUISHD!

A collect-em-up action game for one to four players.

Escape the maze, eat tomatoes, collect treasure, don't fall in the water, and don't get squishd by the side of the screen.

  

Features

• One-player or same-screen multiplayer for up to four players
• Five different zones in one huge scrolling map
• Persistent hi-scores
• Team and individual hi-scores
• "Coop-etetive" gameplay: you have to work with the other players to have a chance of getting the individual hi-score

Gameplay

The players control "tetrapods", trapped in a maze.  The view scrolls randomly, and you must stay on screen to survive.

The maze contains tomatoes and treasure.  Collect them to score points.

After two minutes in the first zone, you will enter the second zone.  There are five zones all, each with different challenges. The scrolling gets faster as you progress through the zones, and the time in each zone gets shorter.  After the fifth zone, you will reach the exit.  Move onto the exit to escape the maze.  In a multiplayer game, all players must escape the maze to win the game, and players earn a bonus if they escape the maze before other players.

You lose a life by being squishd by the side of the screen or by falling into water.  Each player has three lives.  The game ends if any player loses all their lives.

Extra lives are awarded to a player when they score 500 points, then 1000 points, 2000 points, and so on.  There are a few collectible extra life items in the maze, but they are hard to reach.  Will you risk trying to grab them?

Scoring

Tomato	1 point
Silver coin	5 points
Gold coin	10 points
Gemstone	50 points when the gem is the same colour as your character, otherwise 20 points
Escaping the maze	Multiplayer only: bonus of the average score of all players who have not yet escaped

Hi-scores are recorded separately for one-player, two-player, three-player and four-player games.

In multiplayer games, the entire team earns a score, calculated as the average of the players' scores.  You can win two hi-scores: the team hi-score and the individual hi-score.  The individual hi-score can only be won when the team has won the team hi-score.  Until the team has achieved the team hi-score, players must cooperate to push up the average score.   When the team has the team hi-score, a flashing star is displayed at the top of the screen.  At this point, players no longer need to cooperate and can go all out to win the individual hi-score.

Controls

On the title screen:

• Each player: press 🅾️ on their controller to join or leave the team.
• All players: having joined the team, hold down ❎ to start the game.

In the game:

• Use the direction buttons to move your character.
• By default your character runs while you hold down a direction button.
• Hold the 🅾️ or ❎ button to "creep" slowly by a single step for each press of the direction button.  This is useful when negotiating tight passages or making risky manoeuvres near the edge of the screen.

On the game over screen:

•  All players: hold down ❎ to return to the title screen.

The pause menu has options to:

• Turn the music on and off
• Clear all recorded hi-scores
• Abandon the current game and return to the title screen

Inspiration

Squishd!, while not a faithful remake, was inspired by the classic 8-bit game "Splat!".